Wendy Lecker: Evaluation system will compound problems

Published 3:56 pm, Friday, March 9, 2012

Amid all the talk of the proposed teacher evaluation system, one major effect is not being discussed -- the exponential increase in standardized tests that these evaluations demand.

The proposed system requires one-fifth of every teacher's evaluation to be based on a standardized test. Thus, instead of having standardized tests in reading, writing, math in grades 3-8 and 10, and science in grades 5, 8 and 10, our children will now endure standardized tests in every grade and every subject, from kindergarten art to high school gym.

Is this the direction in which we, parents, want our schools to go? With the standardized tests we have now, our children's education is being narrowed. All over this state, art, music, social studies and foreign language courses are being squeezed out to prep for CMTs and CAPTs.

Not only is our curriculum being narrowed, but so is the way our children learn. They are being trained how to give canned answers to prepackaged questions, rather than learning how to think for themselves. Both teachers and students are increasingly suffering through mind-numbing scripted lessons.

Students, especially those in the neediest districts, are being denied the opportunity for a rich and varied education because of the pressure put upon districts to increase test scores in just a few subjects. Imagine what will happen when high-stakes tests are implemented in every subject. Instead of a piece of clay or a paintbrush, a 6-year-old will now be handed a worksheet. Far-fetched? It is already happening in Colorado.

This is not what I want for my children.

It makes me wonder what policy makers want from public schools. Part of the push for more tests stems from the new Common Core Standards -- touted as the answer to our achievement failures. Yet countries with national standards fare no better in educational achievement than those without. Every state has consistent standards, but achievement varies widely. And the Common Core Standards themselves have been found to be in the "mediocre" range when compared to existing state standards across the country.

If new standards will do nothing to improve learning, why were they pushed so aggressively? The comments of Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, are telling. She wrote in the Harvard Business Review that the Common Core "radically alters the market ... Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale."

Our children as a market for the testing and textbook industry.

How far we have strayed from the true purpose of public education. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson declared, "I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education."

Education is the key to good citizenship. The skills needed to be a responsible citizen are not those measured from a writing prompt or scantron. Students must be able to do things like analyze events in history and their impact today, discern the connections between disease and health policy, and collaborate with each other and their teachers.

Good citizenship is sorely needed in our nation today.

In 2008, the U.S. began its slide in the "competitiveness" index of the World Economic Forum, from No. 1 to its current No. 5 position. Not surprisingly, the WEF attributed this decline not to how eighth-graders did in math, but rather to our macroeconomic policies, and to the political intransigence that is preventing change.

Similarly, the officials rebuked by Connecticut's Supreme Court last week for illegally taking over Bridgeport's Board of Education had superior language skills, contending that the law requiring training of board members did not really mean "require." Their failure was in placing politics above the public good.

How can we ensure that the next generation can fix the problems we are leaving them? Our children need to be exposed to a wide variety of subjects, writing, teaching styles and personalities in order to make their own way in school and in life. Students and teachers in Connecticut have so many different life experiences and perspectives. This diversity is the key to tolerance and to innovation. However, if we insist on homogenizing our children's thinking, preparing them only for success on tests, we will indeed maintain the status quo that is stifling the progress of our society.